Black Country hospice's new charity shop ready to support vital work in the community

The Mary Stevens Hospice shop on Market Street in Kingswinford was given a grand opening on Friday, with nurse Helen Hubbard joining store manager Rachel Turley in cutting the ribbon outside the store.

It marked the opening of the 14th Mary Stevens Hospice retail shop in the region, with customers able to shop for a range of items including clothes, DVDs and household items and funds raised at the shop being used to help the hospice in Oldswinford to continue providing care for people with incurable or life-limiting illnesses and their families.

Matron and chief executive Claire Towns was there on the day to celebrate the opening of the store and spoke about what it will do to help the hospice.

She said: "We had a shop in Kingswinford about five or six years ago which was forced to close, but we found that this was the right time to open a new shop in a better positioned place and we've been waiting to come back into Kingswinford for a long time.

"The whole reason our trading company exists is to put the funds back in to running the hospice, for which we have to raise £2.5 million a year, so it was nice to have nurses there to open the shop and to be public facing is really important to me to make that connection with the public.

"It helps them to realise that they're not just going into a charity shop to get a bargain, but they are supporting their local hospice and are at the heart of the community, which is what the hospice is about.

"I would encourage anyone to come down as our Kingswinford shop has got a lot of well branded items and has a real community feeling, with the fundraising team down there from time to time as well, running events and supporting the community."